Those who are forced into being without an abode and/or dwelling are all to quickly deemed less than citizens. In many regards are even treated as less than human. How about thinking that we are NOT homeless, nor last-class citizens or non-human? We think, have feelings, have intellect and struggle. How would you feel to be thought of as anything less than human just for circumstances due to those of profit/gain/control?

The Music of Ending Homelessness - www.Houseless.org

"Houseless", not homeless!

Via

The Music of Ending Homelessness

The music in my home when I was growing up was an unusual blend of
70’s Korean pop ballads, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Who. Today when I
come home from work I’m more likely to hear Gangnam Style, the Harlem
Shake, or Macklemore coming from my kids’ iPods. Times may have changed,
but music is still a large part of what makes a home, and that’s why
Richard Carter’s story has meant so much to me.

Most of our
work at the Foundation is aimed at bringing about large scale changes
that address major inequities around the world. The foundation takes on
huge challenges—eradicating polio overseas, ensuring that all children
in the United States have a quality education, or in my case, reducing
family homelessness in the Puget Sound region. The only way the
foundation can have lasting and meaningful impact is by using our funds
to trigger changes in the larger governmental systems that exist to
solve these problems at scale. We necessarily focus our efforts on
developing strong, catalytic partnerships with governments and direct
service providers, and so all too frequently, our work can feel somewhat
removed from the lives of the people we’re trying to serve.

Last
October, we had the opportunity to interview four families recovering
from homelessness in the Puget Sound region that had received services
from the Washington Families Fund, a public-private partnership
administered by Building Changes, a Foundation grantee.

The
interviews – including one with Richard Carter, the young man who
appears in this video – were conducted to prepare a four-minute film
that kicked off a two-day family homelessness meeting at the Foundation
that brought together federal, state and local leaders, housing and
homelessness advocates, as well as the country’s leading homelessness
researchers, to discuss the most effective ways to deliver housing and
services for homeless families.

As the Foundation’s film crew
was wrapping its interview with Richard, Dave Gross, the sound man for
the shoot, asked him about a small piano in the corner of Richard’s
bedroom and asked him whether he played. The crew saw Richard smile and
after some persuasion, as the crew scrambled to relight and reset their
equipment, Richard performed the original composition that became the
orchestrated score that graces the video. The crew was immediately
struck by the poignancy of Richard’s performance and knew as they were
rolling that they had captured a special moment that would anchor the
heart of their production.

As the crew left Richard’s family’s apartment, Richard commented that
noise restrictions in the complex unfortunately limited his ability to
play his piano on a regular basis. Gross immediately realized that what
Richard needed was a digital piano with headphones so that he could
play without disturbing anyone.

As a member of the Board of
Governors for the Pacific NW Chapter of The Recording Academy, the
organization that puts on the GRAMMY Awards, Gross was able to contact MusiCares,
the charitable arm of Recording Academy. MusiCares was so moved and
inspired by Richard’s story that the organization agreed to donate a
brand new digital piano that Richard would be able to play and record
whenever he wanted. Within a few days, Gross, video producer David
Wulzen, and the cinematographer of the video, Christopher Bell, were
able to present Richard with his new keyboard.

The
Foundation’s family homelessness strategy is an effort to improve the
lives of tens of thousands of homeless families in King, Pierce and
Snohomish Counties, and my work as a program officer here is therefore
focused on partnering with governments to think about how use public and
private resources more efficiently and effectively to provide housing
and services for these families.

I think of my work as
prose—I’m spending most of my days working through dense programs and
funding policies and thinking about how these words and numbers might be
better aligned to serve families I will never meet.

However,
it’s the poetry of Richard’s music-- and the similar talents and
passions of so many other homeless children and their mothers-- that
remind me why our work of systems change really matters, and in the end,
how our success will ultimately be measured.